Delays give the SNP a referendum year bonus

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Setting the Scottish government’s budget for 2013-14 has been a surprisingly
bruising process for an administration that has a majority in Holyrood and
total control over its backbench MSPs.

Battling over cuts to the colleges’ budgets and the revelations regarding
woeful under-spending on flagship privately-financed capital projects in
2012-13 have done damage to the SNP’s reputation for competence. But the
prime concern of John Swinney, the Finance Secretary, is for the Budget in
2014-15, the year of the independence referendum, and, in one respect at
least, circumstances have conspired to give him a delayed bonus.